National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985)

Director: Amy Heckerling

Writers: John Hughes, Robert Klane

Composer: Charles Fox

Starring: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Dana Hill, Jason Lively, John Astin, Sheila Kennedy, Paul Bartel, Cynthia Szigeti, Robbie Coltrane, Eric Idle, William Zabka

More info: IMDb

Tagline: For over two thousand years, Europe has survived many great disasters. Now for the real test... The Griswold's.

Plot: The Griswolds win a vacation tour across Europe where the usual havoc ensues.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

It's fucked up that I still haven't seen the first Vacation movie except for a few scenes yet I've seen this one and VEGAS VACATION (1997) twice.  There are very few funny moments and most of what's funny is mildly amusing at best.  The hour and a half drags much to often and many scenes overstay their welcome.  The cast gives it their all but the movie just sits there flat.  The best gag in the movie and my biggest laugh is the Frisbee toss off the Eiffel Tower.  OK, I'm starting to not care for Chase in this role.  It's a one dimensional character but he's just not selling it as lively and fun as I'd like.  Sue me.  I miss the charismatic Chevy from FOUL PLAY (1978), SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES (1980) and FLETCH (1985).  Pacing is a serious issue and there aren't enough good gags to sustain the 95 minute run time.  The European location is a big bonus but it's hardly enough to make it worthwhile.  I won't be watching this one again.  It's a damn shame that this franchise isn't better because it's loaded with potential.  The Warner Bros. DVD has a nice anamorphic widescreen print.  The only extras are a commentary track with Chevy Chase, dry as usual, trying to be funny.  He's at his best when he's serious and talks about the making of the picture.  Other than that you get an anamorphic widescreen trailer.

Hoodlum (1997)

Director:  Bill Duke

Writer:  Chris Brancato

Composer: Elmer Bernstein

Starring: Laurence Fishburne, Tim Roth, Vanessa Williams, Andy Garcia, Cicely Tyson, Chi McBride, Clarence Williams III, Richard Bradford, William Atherton, Loretta Devine, Queen Latifah, Mike Starr, Beau Starr

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  Power is measured in enemies.

Plot:  In 1934, the second most lucrative business in New York City is a lottery know to the locals as "the numbers". Someday, Madam Queen, the powerful woman who runs the scam in Harlem, is arrested. Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson takes over the business and must resist against the invasion from merciless mobster Dutch Shultz.

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I loves me some period gangster pictures.  I've seen a lot of them and there are a lot of really good ones, too.  This isn't one of them.  At over two hours, it's too long.  One of the problems I have with it is that character actions and some scenes take too long.  The camera lingers a second or two more than necessary.  That's either the director or editor's decision and it's just one of many things that keep this from being a lot better and more fun than it is.  I'm OK with one dimensional characters sometimes because an actor's performance can take it and have fun with it.  Fishburne is just drab, though.  On the other end you've got Tim Roth running for mayor of Over-the-Top-Ville.  Sometimes he's alright and sometimes he's a cartoon villain.  The romance between Fishburne and Williams is flat, cliche and boring.  And the fight choreography suffers from the same phoniness.  Everyone is obviously pulling their punches and the camera lingers long enough for you to see it.  This is where tighter editing would've improved these scenes.  At least they brought on the great Elmer Bernstein to score the picture but even that isn't given much room to shine as it's often too soft on the soundtrack.  I really wanted to like this one but I was bored by the pacing and lack of overall oompf this picture needed to make this a fun and enjoyable ride.  The MGM DVD sports a good anamorphic widescreen print as is the only extra with the theatrical trailer.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

Director: Robert Altman

Writers: Edmund Naughton, Robert Altman, Brian McKay

Starring: Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Rene Auberjonois, William Devane, John Schuck, Corey Fischer, Bert Remsen, Shelley Duvall, Keith Carradine, Michael Murphy, Antony Holland, Hugh Millais, Manfred Schulz

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  Purveyors of Paradise.

Plot:  A gambler and a prostitute become business partners in a remote Old West mining town, and their enterprise thrives until a large corporation arrives on the scene.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  Probably not.

Knowing only that this was a Western with Beatty & Christie and nothing else, I popped the disc in a few nights ago and watched the trailer first, which I don't usually do.  It was clear this was a different kind of Western and probably all drama so it wasn't right for me at that moment and I gravitated to a cheap Corman picture I'd never seen.  Last night it was quiet around the house so I pulled the 11' screen down and gave this one a go.  I was pretty luke warm about it until the final few minutes.  It's a slow burn that rarely picks up steam; you're just watching these characters in their environment.  The actors do a fine enough job.  There is one standout performance and that's by the 6'7" Butler, the leader of the killers hired to snuff out McCabe (Beatty), played wonderfully by Hugh Millais.  He's only got 10 movie/TV credits but he owned every scene he was in here.  Oh, yeah, and it's Keith Carradine's first movie and he's great which makes his tense moment on the bridge even more tense. The music is sparse and appropriate.  It's mostly all seen played on screen except for the three repeated Leonard Cohen songs which were not written for the film but seem to fit nicely with the dim look and feel of the movie. 

The art/set design and cinematography are outstanding.  This little town looks authentic and well lived in.  It's grimy, wet and you can almost smell it.  The same goes with the costuming and everything else that attributes to what you see.  The only thing that's lacking, if anything, is the story.  I would've liked more and if that means holding my hand a little through a scene or two, then so be it.  It just felt like there was a good chunk missing.  It's almost too simple as in you're telling a story about a man who's building a town and gets partway through only to have someone offer to buy him out.  He refuses so the buyers send someone to kill him.  End of story.  Oh, and along the way he hooks up with a prostitute to run the town brothel and she's a real working girl who even makes him pay for sex.  That's the gist of it.  The ending is very nice and I was really touched by what happens to both McCabe & Mrs. Miller and I didn't see either fate coming.  That was great.  I might watch this one day, many years from now and see how it plays, knowing what to expect.  This picture is slow (which is perfectly fine) and there are a lot of nice touches that alone make this worth watching (like when the two couples are dancing and they stop to watch the music player move to the next song).  One thing I didn't care for was the sometimes look of the film as if it were filmed in constant haze.  When the picture was clear of that it looked great.  The Warner Bros. DVD features the film in anamorphic widescreen (and so is the trailer, yay!).  The extras you get are the trailer, a commentary track with Altman and co-producer David Foster and a 10 minute vintage featurette (fullscreen).

Six Bridges to Cross (1955)

Director: Joseph Pevney

Writers: Sydney Boehm, Joseph F. Dinneen

Composers: Frank Skinner, Herman Stein

Starring: Tony Curtis, George Nader, Julie Adams, Jay C. Flippen, Sal Mineo, Jan Merlin, Richard Castle, William Murphy, Kendall Clark, Don Keefer, Harry Bartell, Tito Vuolo, Jeff Chandler

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Is This The Unsolved Secret Behind the Great $2,500,000 Boston Robbery?

Plot: Youth gang leader Jerry Florea is shot fleeing from a crime scene by rookie cop Ed Gallagher. Result: "he'll never have children of his own." Ed and Jerry develop a mutually beneficial friendship: Jerry gets the benefit of the doubt, Ed gets information that brings him rapid promotion. As years and jail terms go by, Ed's friendship with this likable rogue becomes strained, as hope for his reform dwindles. Can Jerry redeem himself in the end?

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Set your expectations a little lower if you're looking for a heist picture.  This isn't it.  Crimes are committed but they're mere seconds per whack.  This is a dramatic character study of a criminal, Jerry (Curtis) who has spent his life unchanging.  He befriends the cop, Ed (Nader) who shot him trying to get away from a burglary when he was a kid and he plays the cop's game for years.   Jerry is one big disappointment to Ed and his wife Ellen (Adams) but they still love him with diminishing return.  The performances are solid and Curtis is fantastic.  I don't think I've ever seen him better, but then I've only seen a few of his pictures).  The story is engaging enough (thanks to Curtis' charisma and enthusiasm) but I was let down by the lack of any heist action and onscreen criminal activity.  I understand that it's my preconceived notions of what the film was that's the culprit and not the fault of the picture.  The film was shot widescreen but good luck finding it anyway but fullscreen.  Maybe this has turned up on TCM that way but it's a Universal picture and I don't know if TCM shows their movies.  A couple of interesting bits, this is Sal Mineo's first movie and the internet says that Sammy Davis Jr. lost his eye in a car accident on the way to record the movie's titular song.  I knew about the accident but never remembered this flick had a connection. 

The Last Woman on Earth (1960)

Director: Roger Corman

Writer: Robert Towne

Composer: Ronald Stein

Starring: Betsy Jones-Moreland, Antony Carbone, Robert Towne

More info: IMDb

Tagline: They fought for the Ultimate Prize!

Plot: Ev, along with her husband, Harold, and their lawyer friend Martin, are swimming while on vacation in Puerto Rico. When they resurface, they gradually conclude that an unexplained, temporary interruption of oxygen has killed everyone on the island... maybe even the world!

My rating: 5.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Roger Corman made some good films but he also made his fair share of stinkers.  This one was shot on the cheap and probably on the double quick.  He was good at that.  The movie poster over sells the picture.  The film itself is nowhere near as sexy and dangerous as the poster lets on.  There's a little action at the end by way of the two men battling it out for Evelyn but that's the extent of that.  The low budget trappings don't help the film but the outdoor shooting locations elevate it and the pacing is good.  The actors do as well as expected under the circumstances.  It's not as polished as I'd like it but then this is a Corman quickie so you should go in with a certain level of expectation.  Robert "CHINATOWN (1974) Towne wrote and starred in this.  He's the weakest of the three actors but then acting wasn't his bag and Corman reportedly cast him to save money because he needed Towne, the writer, on set.  Rumor has it the script wasn't finished when shooting began.  The story is pretty good but it's missing any sense of real gloom and doom once they realize they're probably not in any danger from anyone or anything but themselves.  I did like the non-conventional outcome.  Overall, while it's not a snoozefest, it's not engaging but it does offer a little bit of fun.  I would've probably scored it better but, since this is in the public domain, I couldn't find a good color print, much less a widescreen print.  I watched it on an Alpha DVD and the print was utterly horrible.  It was only now when looking on YouTube that I found a better one which is available below.  Corman fans and B-movie fans will be more forgiving of the film than anyone else. 

ffolkes (1980)

Original title: North Sea Hijack

Director: Andrew V. McLaglen

Writer: Jack Davies

Composer: Michael J. Lewis

Starring:  Roger Moore, James Mason, Anthony Perkins, Michael Parks, David Hedison, Jack Watson, George Baker, Jeremy Clyde, David Wood, Faith Brook

More info: IMDb

Tagline: When the next 12 hours could cost you 1,000 million pounds and 600 lives you need a man who lives second by second.

Plot: When terrorists take over two oil rigs and threaten to explode them if their demands are not met, an eccentric anti-terrorism expert volunteers his unique commando unit to stop them.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

Boy do I miss the movie poster artwork of the 70s.    I remember seeing this on HBO in the very early 80s.  That would've been around peak Roger Moore for me even though I've never lost the excitement for seeing a Moore picture for the first time.  I really dig that guy.  The cast is fantastic.  James Mason and Anthony Perkins?  Are you kidding?  And the supporting cast is great, too.  It's fun seeing Moore play a woman-hating, booze-loving man of action that doesn't fuck around.  You do it his way or you're out and he doesn't compromise.  Just because he has contempt for the broads doesn't mean he hates the pussy.

Ffolkes  (Moore) is an interesting character and the kind you rarely see.  It's harsh how he treats women but he doesn't apologize for it and sticks to his antiquated ways.  James Mason adds weight to everything he's in.  Anthony Perkins isn't as good or fun as you'd think as the masterminding bad guy with a plan.  His exit is fun, though.  There's something missing from this film that keeps it from being a minor classic and I don't know what it is.  I can say that this film at times feels like a TV movie and the same goes for the score.  That doesn't help the movie at all.  Sometimes the dialogue crosses over to the cliche and hokey but try not to let that deter you from checking it out.  Fans of Moore or Perkins are going to need to see this regardless.  The Universal DVD has a nice anamorphic widescreen print with zilch for extras. 

 

The Nice Guys (2016)

Director: Shane Black

Writers: Shane Black, Anthony Bagarozzi

Composers: David Buckley, John Ottman

Starring: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Yaya DaCosta, Keith David, Beau Knapp, Lois Smith, Murielle Telio, Gil Gerard, Daisy Tahan, Kim Basinger

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Nice pair

Plot: In 1970s Los Angeles, a mismatched pair of private eyes investigate a missing girl and the mysterious death of a porn star.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Maybe.

If you're not familiar with writer/director Shane Black then you should be.  You've at least probably seen several of the pictures he's written like the LETHAL WEAPON franchise or IRON MAN 3 (to name a few).  This guy is great.  Really.  This is only his third feature as director and it's just as you'd expect...fun.  The crime story is just complicated enough to give our two detectives (of sorts) something to keep them busy with until the credits roll which is perfectly fine.  I love the 70s L.A. setting.  The references from that decade are all over the place but they rarely hit you over the head like they did in the US version of LIFE ON MARS (2008) which I just recently watched.  There's a lot of subtlety in this picture and I REALLY appreciate that.  For example, the film opens with a car crashing through a house; you see the car approaching from inside the house but you don't hear it until it breaks through.  There are lots of peripheral shots like that which don't draw attention to themselves like you'd see in mainstream Hollywood movies.  Innocent people are accidentally shot but Black doesn't linger on it.  He treats them as if the bullet struck a wall or a tree.  He just moves on with the story as you should. The action is good as is the occasional comedy which is often laugh-out-loud funny.  I loved the Abbott & Costello homage when March (Gosling) discovers a dead body and he can't form words but only frightened sounds out of his mouth just like Lou Costello when he saw a ghost or something horrible.  I LOVED IT!  I liked the picture quite a bit despite my expectations being higher than normal.  I wouldn't mind if this were to turn into a franchise.  Black is good writing great buddy cop pictures and I hope he enjoyed making this film enough to want to see it continue.